Will Legalizing Drugs Solve Our Race Problems?

Could legalizing drugs really be the solution to the problems plaguing black America? According to John McWhorter,
it could. In a New Year's Eve piece at The New Republic, McWhorter
pushes for the United States to heed former English drug official Bob
Ainsworth's recent proposal
for the legalization of all drugs. McWhorter's argument is simple: if
all drugs are made available and sold at a low price at CVS or
Walgreens, the sale of drugs on the street would be come obsolete,
forcing, specifically, young black males who would normally choose to
make money dealing to complete high school and get legitimate jobs.
"That is neither an exaggeration nor an oversimplification," insists
McWhorter, who shoots down the argument that "this could only happen
with low-skill factory jobs available a bus ride away from all black
neighborhoods ... Too many people of all colors of modest education
manage to get by without taking a time machine to the 1940s, and after
the War on Drugs black men would be no exception."

McWhorter
paints an optimistic picture of a new black community wherein young
black men are "much less likely to wind up in prison cells or caskets,
would be a constant presence--and thus stay in the lives of their
children." Black boys would not see "drug-addicted ex-cons" as the norm, he predicts. "And something else these boys would
not grow up with is a bone-deep sense of the police--and thus
whites--as an enemy. Because there would be no reason for the police to
prowl through his neighborhood."

McWhorter's immodest proposal
for drug legalization as the cure-all for black poverty and,
essentially, racism in America ("No more episodes like Henry Louis
Gates supposing that an encounter with a policeman on his front porch
might be about race...And no more books with titles like Wrong Place,
Wrong Time: Trauma and Violence in the Lives of Young Black Men or The
New Jim Crow") has received a variety of reactions. Mostly, the general
notion that the war on drugs should end is embraced, but McWhorter's
suggestion that the result will be a smooth and easy success, is
questioned.

What About the Potential Consequences? The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates
is supportive of a plan to reduce the amount of African Americans in
prison, but questions whether the potential downsides of making all
drugs so easily accessible might outweigh the benefits. He asks:

Would
we be faced with more drug addiction? Would that drug addiction be
concentrated more among the poor, and thus among blacks? Would we have
to put more money into treatment? Would that, in and of itself, become
a race issue? Would we see more children addicted to drugs? Are we
prepared for the spectacle of kids ODing on legal drugs? How much would
we cut the prison population? Would states be willing to put out money
to make sure ex-cons were reintegrated into society? And what does it
even mean to legalize drugs? Is this a matter of state law? Federal
law? How would this actually happen?

Will There Be Enough Jobs for Everyone? Think Progress blogger Matthew Yglesias
isn't convinced by McWhorter's argument that former drug dealers will
be able to make a smooth transition into the legitimate job world.

If black men currently earning black market drug incomes lost
that opportunity, it’s true that some of them would find jobs in the
legitimate workforce. But unemployment would still be really high,
working class unemployment would still be really high, African-American
unemployment would still be really high, and working class
African-American unemployment would still be really really high. It’s
just not within people’s power to conjure up intense demand for labor
from low-skill individuals with spotty history’s in the legitimate
workforce. If a guy walks through your door and says “I’m 25, I didn’t
finish high school, and I’ve never held a legitimate job” you’d have to
be a bit nuts to offer him a minimum wage job when there are so many
other jobless people out there you could try to hire.

Another Plus: Legal Drugs are Safer Although
he acknowledges the potential for serious prescription drug addiction,
such as the current popularity of potent painkillers such as Oxycontin,
Vincent Nunes
points out that legalization and regulation of drugs as pharmaceuticals
"takes away the inherent dangers of wayward drug production; namely the
substitution of fillers to replace certain elements."